Introduction
Although dwarfed in population compared to several Northern states, Missouri, nevertheless, provided more cavalry to the Union army than any other Union state - a fact that is rarely discussed.
According to the 1860 U.S. census, Missouri had a free population of 1,067,081 and an additional slave population of 114,931.
The Border States--Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia--comprised the Civil War's middle
ground, a region of moderation lying between the warring North and South. It was
the region in which no states supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential
election.
During the Civil War,
Missouri, a Border State of divided loyalties, supplied nearly 110,000 troops
(including Native Americans and colored) to the Union and as many as 90,000
troops to the Confederacy (many joined Confederate units in neighboring states
such as Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee). Missouri provided the Union with 64
regiments and 20 companies of infantry, 30 regiments and 26 companies of
cavalry, 6 batteries of artillery, and numerous independent and unattached
units. A remarkable testimony of Missouri's loyalty to the United States was the
fact that the state provided more cavalrymen to the Union than any other state.
By war’s end, Missouri men, who served the Union military, suffered nearly
14,000 in killed and thousands more in wounded. Casualties for the state’s loyal
men to the Confederacy are unknown.
The land that is now Missouri was acquired from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase and became known as the Missouri Territory. Part of the Territory was admitted into the Union as the 24th state on August 10, 1821.
Missouri was initially settled by slaveholding Southerners coming up the Mississippi River and Missouri River. Missouri entered the Union in 1821 as a slave state following the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in which it was agreed that no state north of Missouri's southern border with Arkansas could enter the Union as a slave state. Maine entered the Union as a free state in the compromise to balance Missouri. In 1854 the Kansas Nebraska Act nullified the Missouri Compromise and said the two states could decide on their own whether to enter as a free or slave state. The result was a de facto war between pro-slavery residents of Missouri (called Border Ruffians) and Kansas free-staters to influence how Kansas entered the Union.
During the Civil War, Missouri
was considered a Border State with divided loyalties, the Brother
against Brother War, and an environment well-known for its bushwhackers and
guerrilla warfare. The Border War, moreover, would continue into the Civil War
and beyond.
On the subject of secession--from prominent
citizens to state legislatures to U.S. senators--the citizens of Missouri held
numerous sessions, conventions and meetings, with various committees and
political parties present. Although they drafted or passed several
resolutions, acts and bills, Missourians held 3 distinct positions on secession:
1) remain in the Union; 2) secede with sister Southern states and join the
Confederacy, and; 3) remain neutral and refuse to support the Union or the
Confederacy.
The Union Army states that “Missouri was one of the last as well as one of the first states to feel the curse of Civil War. During the contest she furnished to the Federal government a total of 109,111 men, exclusive of the militia she maintained to keep peace within her borders and protect her people from the raids of the guerrillas, Jayhawkers and other predatory bands who were actuated more by the prospect of plunder than by principles or patriotism.” The total number of Missourians who supported the Confederacy and joined its armies in various Southern states is unknown. Estimates, however, range from "more than" 40,000 to 100,000, with the best estimate of 90,000. See also Total Union and Confederate Casualties.
During the Civil War, in 1861, fighting ensued between Union forces and a combined army of General Price's Missouri State Guard and Confederate troops from Arkansas and Texas under General Ben McCulloch. After winning victories at the battle of Wilson's Creek and the siege of Lexington, Missouri, and suffering losses elsewhere, the Confederate forces retreated to Arkansas and later Marshall, Texas, in the face of a largely reinforced Union Army.
Though regular Confederate
troops staged some large-scale raids into Missouri, the fighting in the state
for the next three years consisted chiefly of guerrilla warfare with units such
as Quantrill's
Raiders.
"Citizen soldiers" or guerrillas such as Colonel William Quantrill, Frank and Jesse
James, the
Younger brothers, and William T. Anderson, aka "Bloody Bill"
Anderson,
made use of quick, small-unit tactics. Pioneered by the Missouri Partisan
Rangers, such insurgencies also arose in portions of the Confederacy occupied by
the Union during the Civil War. As a result of the lingering feuds from the
Border War and American Civil War, Guerrillas and outlaws would continue the
region’s lawlessness into the 1880s.
The history of slavery in Missouri
began in 1720, when a man named Philippe Francois Renault brought about 500
negro slaves from Santo Domingo to work in lead mines in the River des Peres
area, located in the present-day St. Louis and Jefferson counties.
The institution only became prominent in the area following two major events: the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney (1793). This led to a mass movement of slave-owning proprietors to the area of present-day Missouri and Arkansas, then known as Upper Louisiana. However, the spread of major cotton growth was limited to the more southerly area, near the border with present-day Arkansas. Instead, slavery in the other areas of Missouri was concentrated into other major crops, such as tobacco, hemp, grain and livestock. A number of slaves were hired out as stevedores, cabin boys, or deck hands for the ferries of the Mississippi River.
Missouri Compromise of
1820: The
admission of Missouri as a state in 1820 provoked a contentious national debate
over slavery. Missouri was the second state to be carved from the vast territory
acquired from France in the Louisiana Purchase and was to be admitted as a slave
state. This aroused concern in the North. After much wrangling, a compromise was
worked out. Under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, Maine was admitted as a
free state at the same time that Missouri came in as a slave state, maintaining
the balance between slave and free states. Additionally, Congress prohibited
slavery in all western territories lying above 36° 30' latitude (the southern
boundary of Missouri).
Compromise of 1850: As a result of the Mexican War (1846-1848), the United States won vast acreage in the West (present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Texas). This acquisition renewed the controversy over slavery in the territories. California applied for admission as a free state in 1850. Southern political leaders were concerned that this would upset the balance of 15 free and 15 slave states. They also were disturbed by Northern agitation to end slavery in the District of Columbia and by the passage of "personal liberty" laws in the Northern states. The personal liberty laws aimed to restrict the cooperation of state officials in enforcing the Federal fugitive slave law. Southern senators blocked the admission of California and a crisis was at hand. Prolonged negotiation finally produced a series of measures that became known as the Compromise of 1850. Aspects of the compromise included 1) admission of California as a free state; 2) a stronger fugitive slave law; 3) assurance that Congress would not interfere with the interstate traffic in slaves in the South; and 4) prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Finally, an act allowed the citizens of the remaining territories to be carved out of former Mexican land to decide for themselves on allowing slavery. Optimists believed that these measures constituted a lasting settlement of the divisive issue of slavery, but this was not to be.
Kansas Nebraska Act of
1854: In
1853-1854, the slavery issue got tied up with the effort to build a
transcontinental railroad. In order to achieve territorial organization of land
that a railroad to the West Coast might pass through, the Democratic Party had
to make concessions to the South. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 gave the
people of those territories the authority to decide on the legal status of
slavery, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise line. This act kicked off
seven years of intense national dispute over slavery, culminating in secession
and, finally, civil war in 1861. Northerners were outraged at the
Kansas-Nebraska Act's repeal of a long-established compromise. Pro- and
anti-slavery factions immediately converted the territory of Kansas into a
bloody battleground.
Border War: The years of
1854-1861 were a turbulent time in Kansas territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of
1854 established the territorial boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska and opened
the land to legal settlement. It allowed the residents of these territories to
decide by popular vote whether their state would be free or slave. This concept
of self-determination was called "popular sovereignty." In Kansas, people on all
sides of this controversial issue flooded the territory, trying to influence the
vote in their favor. Rival territorial governments, election fraud, and
squabbles over land claims all contributed to the violence of this
era.
Three distinct political groups occupied Kansas: pro-slavers, free-staters and abolitionists. Violence broke out immediately between these opposing factions and continued until January 29, 1861, when Kansas entered the Union as a free state. This era became forever known in the state as "Bleeding Kansas."
The majority of slaveowners in Missouri arrived from the agricultural lands of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. By 1860, only 36 counties in Missouri had 1,000 or more slaves; The value of all the slaves in Missouri was estimated by the State Auditor's 1860 report at approximately $44,181,912 ($1,142,838,790 as of 2013).
As one of the Border States, Missouri was exempt from President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation decreeing the freedom of slaves in all territory then held by Confederate forces. Governor Thomas C. Fletcher, however, abolished slavery in Missouri by executive proclamation on January 11, 1865.
Sentiment
By 1860, Missouri's initial Southern settlers had been supplanted with a more diversified non-slaveholding population, including many Northerners, German and Irish immigrants. With war seeming inevitable, Missouri thought it could stay out of the conflict by remaining in the Union, but staying neutral—not giving men or supplies to either side and pledging to fight troops from either side who entered the state. The policy was first put forth in 1860 by outgoing Governor Robert Marcellus Stewart, who had Northern leanings. It was notionally reaffirmed by incoming Governor Claiborne Jackson, who had Southern leanings. Jackson however, stated in his inaugural address that in case of Federal "coercion" of Southern states, Missouri should support and defend her "sister Southern states". A Constitutional Convention to discuss secession was convened with Sterling Price presiding. The delegates voted to stay in the Union and supported the neutrality position.
The legislature elected in
1860 met at Jefferson City on the last day of that year. Gov. Stewart, in his
farewell message, said: "Our people would feel more sympathy with the movement
(secession), had it not originated amongst those who, like ourselves, have
suffered severe losses and constant annoyances from the interference and
depredations of outsiders. Missouri will hold to the Union so long as it is
worth the effort to preserve it. She cannot be frightened by the past unfriendly
legislation of the North, nor dragooned into secession by the restrictive
legislation of the extreme South."
In the United States presidential election, 1860, Abraham Lincoln received only 10 percent of the state's votes, while 71 percent favored either John Bell or Stephen A. Douglas, both of whom wanted the status quo to remain (Douglas was to narrowly win the Missouri vote over Bell—the only state Douglas carried besides New Jersey) with the remaining 19 percent siding with Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge.
In the election of 1860, Missouri’s newly elected governor was Claiborne "Fox" Jackson, a career politician and an ardent supporter of the South. Jackson campaigned as a Douglas Democrat, favoring a conciliatory program on issues that divided the country. After Jackson’s election, however, he immediately began working behind the scenes to promote Missouri’s secession. In addition to planning to seize the Federal arsenal at St. Louis, Jackson conspired with senior Missouri bankers to illegally divert money from the banks to arm state troops, a measure that the Missouri General Assembly had so far refused to take. See also Missouri Civil War Timeline of Events.
Although Gov. Jackson
supported Douglas, who represented the ideas of the Northern Democracy, he soon
gave evidence of his fealty to the dogma of secession. In his inaugural message,
January 3, 1861, he insisted that "the destiny of the slaveholding states in
this Union is one and the same; that it will be impossible to separate
Missouri's fate from that of her sister states who have the same social
organization; that in the event of a failure to reconcile the conflicting
interests which now threaten the disruption of the existing Union, interest and
sympathy alike combine to unite the fortunes of all the slaveholding states;
that Missouri will not shrink from the duty which her position on the border
imposes, but determine her to stand by the South; that the state was in favor of
remaining in the Union so long as there was any hope of maintaining the
guarantees of the constitution; and that he was utterly opposed to the doctrine
of coercion, in any event, as leading to consolidation and despotism." He closed
his inaugural by saying that he believed Missouri was entitled to a voice in the
settlement of the questions then pending before the country, and recommended the
immediate call of a state convention "that the will of the people may be
ascertained and effectuated," significantly adding — "It may soon become
necessary to send delegates to a convention of the Southern states, or of all
the states."
After the secession of Southern states began in 1861, the Missouri legislature called for the election of a special convention on secession. The convention voted decisively to remain within the Union. Pro-Southern Governor Claiborne F. Jackson ordered the mobilization of several hundred members of the state militia who had gathered in a camp in St. Louis for training. Alarmed at this action, Union General Nathaniel Lyon struck first, encircling the camp and forcing the state troops to surrender. Lyon directed his soldiers, largely non-English-speaking German immigrants, to march the prisoners through the streets, and they opened fire on the largely hostile crowds of civilians who gathered around them. Soldiers killed unarmed prisoners as well as men, women and children of St. Louis in the incident that became known as the "St. Louis Massacre."
These events heightened Confederate support within the state. Governor Jackson appointed Sterling Price, president of the convention on secession, as head of the new Missouri State Guard. In the face of Union General Lyon's rapid advance through the state, Jackson and Price were forced to flee the capital of Jefferson City on June 14, 1861. In the town of Neosho, Missouri, Jackson called the state legislature into session. They enacted a secession ordinance. However, even under the Southern view of secession, only the state convention had the power to secede. Since the convention was dominated by Unionists, and the state was more pro-Union than pro-Confederate in any event, the ordinance of secession adopted by the legislature is generally given little credence. The Confederacy nonetheless recognized it on October 30, 1861.
With the elected governor absent from the capital and the legislators largely dispersed, the state convention was reassembled with most of its members present, save 20 that fled south with Jackson's forces. The convention declared all offices vacant, and installed Hamilton Gamble as the new governor of Missouri. President Lincoln's administration immediately recognized Gamble's government as the legal Missouri government. The Federal government's decision enabled raising pro-Union militia forces for service within the state as well as volunteer regiments for the Union Army.
Union provisional government
On July 22, 1861, following Lyon's capture of the Missouri capital at Jefferson City, the Missouri Constitutional Convention reconvened and declared the Missouri governor's office to be vacant. On July 28, it appointed former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Hamilton Rowan Gamble as governor of the state and agreed to comply with Lincoln's demand for troops.
Confederate Government of
Missouri
In October 1861, the remnants of the elected state government that favored the South (including Jackson and Price) met in Neosho, and voted to formally secede from the Union. The measure gave them votes in the Confederate Congress, but otherwise was symbolic since they did not control any part of the state. The capital was to eventually move to Marshall, Texas. When Jackson died in office in 1862, his lieutenant governor, Thomas Caute Reynolds, succeeded him. See also Missouri Civil War Timeline of Events.
Civil War
According to the 1860 U.S. census, Missouri had a free population of 1,067,081 and an additional slave population of 114,931.
During the Civil War, Missouri, a Border State of divided loyalties, supplied nearly 110,000 troops (including Native Americans and colored) to the Union and as many as 90,000 troops to the Confederacy (many joined Confederate units in neighboring states such as Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee). Missouri provided the Union with 64 regiments and 20 companies of infantry, 30 regiments and 26 companies of cavalry, 6 batteries of artillery, and numerous independent and unattached units. A remarkable testimony of Missouri's loyalty to the United States was the fact that the state provided more cavalrymen to the Union than any other state. By war’s end, Missouri men, who served the Union military, suffered nearly 14,000 in killed and thousands more in wounded. Casualties for the state’s loyal men to the Confederacy are unknown.
Missouri was a keystone in the Union cause. The nation's major western lines of communication and travel were anchored in the state, including the Pony Express, and the California, Oregon, and Santa Fe Trails. The three major waterways of the nation, the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers, either passed through or touched the state. According to the 1860 census, Missouri ranked eighth in population, making it an excellent manpower resource for the Union Army. The state was rich in deposits of raw materials -- lead for bullets, iron for cannonballs. Its agricultural production could feed an army. The state was also host to numerous arsenals, including the St. Louis Arsenal.
In 1861, the U.S. arsenal at
St. Louis housed 60,000 stands of arms, a number of cannon and large stores of
munitions of war. Both Union and secessionists looked with longing eyes upon the
arsenal. Each realized that whichever side gained possession of the arsenal
would control St. Louis, and the side that controlled St. Louis would eventually
control the state. Then opposing sides, during a series of calculated
events, vied for control of said arsenal. The arsenal, however, was located in
the southern part of the city, which was occupied almost exclusively by a German
population, which was staunchly pro-Union. On February 6, 1861, Captain
Nathaniel Lyon marched unopposed into St. Louis at the head of his company from
Kansas and secured the St. Louis Arsenal by direction of President Lincoln. On
March 13, Lyon was placed in nominal command of the arsenal. With an increasing
Union presence daily and as a result of martial law that had been imposed
on April 30, the St. Louis Massacre erupted on May 10. Subsequently there was no
longer neutrality; citizens were either Union or Confederate. See also Missouri Civil War Timeline
of Events.
There were battles and skirmishes in all areas of the state, from the Iowa and Illinois border in the northeast to the edge of the state in the southeast and southwest on the Arkansas border. Counting minor engagements, actions and skirmishes, Missouri saw over 1,200 distinct fights. Only Virginia and Tennessee exceeded Missouri in the number of clashes within the state boundaries.
In the Civil War, Missouri was a Border State that sent men, armies, generals, and supplies to both Union and Confederate sides, had its star on both flags, had separate governments representing each side, and endured a neighbor-against-neighbor intrastate war within the larger national war. The first major Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River was on August 10, 1861 at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, whereas the largest battle in the war west of the Mississippi River was the Battle of Westport at Kansas City in 1864.
Conflicts and battles in the war were divided into three phases, starting with the Union removal of Governor Jackson and pursuit of Sterling Price and his Missouri State Guard in 1861; a period of neighbor-versus-neighbor bushwhacking guerrilla warfare from 1862 to 1864 (guerrilla warfare would continue after the war and until at least 1889); and finally Sterling Price's attempt to retake the state in 1864. See also Missouri Civil War Battles: The Definitive Timeline of Battles and Events.
Missouri had a population of nearly 1,000,000 citizens in 1860, and, although a
slaveholding Border State, it provided the Union Army with more cavalry units
than any other state, including the great states of New York (population nearly 4,000,000) and
Pennsylvania (approximately 3,000,000 citizens). The cavalry total for
Missouri does not include consolidated, reorganized, disbanded, independent,
unattached, state and militia units. See also Missouri Civil War Battles and Timeline of
Events and Missouri in the Civil War
(1861-1865).
Notable
Missourians
Numerous Missourians fought
valiantly during the Civil War and several were awarded the Medal of Honor. Most
Missourians who were awarded the medal served in the infantry, fought in the Battle of
Vicksburg, and were cited for "Gallantry in the charge of
the "'volunteer storming party.'" Perhaps the most recognized name in the list
of gallant soldiers is John M. Schofield. See also Missouri and Civil War Medal of Honor
Recipients.
John McAllister Schofield
(September 29, 1831 – March 4, 1906). When the Civil War commenced, Schofield
became a major in a Missouri volunteer regiment and served as chief of staff to
Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon until Lyon's death during the Battle of Wilson's Creek,
Missouri, in August 1861. Schofield acted with "conspicuous gallantry" during
the battle, and received the Medal of Honor in 1892 for that
action.
Schofield was promoted to
brigadier general of volunteers on November 21, 1861, and to major general on
November 29, 1862. From 1861 to 1863, he held various commands in the
Trans-Mississippi Theater, mainly commanding the Army of the Frontier. He was
eventually relieved of duty in the West, at his own request, due to altercations
with his superior Samuel R. Curtis.
On April 17, 1863, he assumed
command of the 3rd Division in the XIV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. He
returned to Missouri as commander of the Department of Missouri in 1863. His
command in Missouri was marred by controversy, with pro-Union Missourians
sending a delegation to Washington D.C. to plead with President Lincoln to
dismiss Schofield—for sympathizing with pro-Confederate Bushwhackers who were
attacking loyal Union citizens.
In 1864, as commander of the Army of the Ohio,
he took part in the Atlanta Campaign under Major General William T. Sherman.
Sherman, after the fall of Atlanta, took the majority of his forces on a
March to the Sea through Georgia. Schofield's Army of the Ohio was detached to
join Major General George H. Thomas in Tennessee. Confederate General John Bell
Hood invaded Tennessee, and, on November 30, Hood managed to attack Schofield's
Army of the Ohio in the Battle of Franklin. Schofield successfully repulsed Hood
and joined his forces with Thomas. December 15-16, Schofield took part in
Thomas's crowning victory at the Battle of Nashville. For his services at
Franklin he was awarded the rank of brigadier general in the regular army on
November 30, 1864, and the brevet rank of major general on March 13, 1865.
Ordered to operate with Sherman in North Carolina, Schofield moved his corps by
rail and sea to Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in 17 days, occupied Wilmington on
February 22, 1865, fought the action at Kinston on March 10, and on March 23,
joined Sherman at Goldsboro.
Following the Civil War,
Schofield served as 28th United States Secretary of War (June 1, 1868 – March
13, 1869); Superintendent of the United States Military Academy (1876 – 1881),
and; General-in-Chief of the U.S. Army (1888 – 1895). Schofield died on March 4,
1906, and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Schofield stated in his
commencement address to the class of 1879 at West Point:
"The discipline which makes
the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh
or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to
destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and give
commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier
no feeling, but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of
voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one
mode or other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit
in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others
cannot fail to inspire in them respect for himself. While he who feels, and
hence manifests, disrespect towards others, especially his subordinates, cannot
fail to inspire hatred against himself."
Schofield's Medal of Honor
Citation
Rank and organization: Major, 1st Missouri
Infantry. Place and date: At Wilsons Creek, Mo., 10 August 1861. Entered service
at: St. Louis, Mo. Born: 29 September 1831, Gerry, N.Y. Date of issue: 2 July
1892. Citation: Was conspicuously gallant in leading a regiment in a successful
charge against the enemy.
Battle of Wilson's Creek, Battle of Lexington,
and Rebel Ascendancy
The largest battle in the campaign to evict
Jackson was the Battle of Wilson's Creek near Springfield, Missouri, on August
10, 1861. The battle marked the first time that the Missourians had sought
formal help from the Confederate States of America. A combined force of over
12,000 Confederate soldiers, Arkansas State Troops, and Missouri State Guardsmen
under Confederate Brigadier Ben McCulloch fought approximately 5,400 Federals in
a punishing six hour battle. Union forces suffered over 1,300 casualties,
including Lyon, who was fatally shot. The Confederates lost 1,200 men. The
exhausted Confederates did not closely pursue the retreating Federals. In the
aftermath of the battle, the Southern commanders disagreed as to the proper next
step. Price argued for an invasion of Missouri. McCulloch, concerned about
security of Arkansas and Indian Territory, and skeptical about the possibility
of subsisting his army in central Missouri, refused. The Confederate and
Arkansas troops fell back to the border, while Price lead his Guardsmen into
northwestern Missouri to recapture the state.
Price's emboldened Missouri State Guard marched
on Lexington, besieging Col. Mulligan's garrison at the Battle of Lexington on
September 20. Deploying wet hemp bales as mobile breastworks, the rebel advance
was shielded from heavy cannon fire. By early afternoon, the rolling
fortification had advanced close enough for the Southerners to take the Union
works in a final rush. By 2:00 p.m., Mulligan had surrendered. Price was
reportedly so impressed by Mulligan's demeanor and conduct during and after the
battle that he offered him his own horse and buggy, and ordered him safely
escorted to Union lines. Years later, in his book The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government, Southern president Jefferson Davis opined that "The
expedient of the bales of hemp was a brilliant conception, not unlike that which
made Tarik, the Saracen warrior, immortal, and gave his name to the northern
pillar of Hercules."
The hopes of many
Southern-leaning, mostly farming-dependent, families, including Jesse James and
family in Liberty, MO., rose and fell based on news of Price's battles. "If
Price succeeded, the entire state of Missouri might fall into the hands of the
Confederacy. For all anyone knew, it would force Lincoln to accept the South's
independence, in light of earlier rebel victories. After all, no one expected
the war to last much longer." The Battle of Lexington, also called the Battle of
the Hemp Bales was a huge success for the rebels, and meant rebel ascendency,
albeit temporarily, in Western and southwest Missouri. Combined with the loss of
such a pivotal leader of the Federals' Western campaign in Nathaniel Lyon, and
the Union's stunning defeat in the war's first major land battle, First Battle
of Bull Run, Missouri's secessionists were "jubilant." Exaggerated stories and
rumors of Confederate successes spread easily in this era of slower, often
equine-based communication. St. Louis' (ironically named) Unionist-Democrat
Daily Missouri Republican reported some of the secessionist scuttlebutt a week
after the rebel victory at Lexington:
"A party with whom I have
conversed, says no one has any idea how much the secession cause has been
strengthened since PRICE'S march to Lexington, and particularly since its
surrender. The rebels are jubilant, and swear they will drive the Federalists
into the Missouri and Mississippi before two months are over. A party of rebels
recently stated that LINCOLN had been hanged by BEAUREGARD, and that for weeks
past the National Congress had been held in Philadelphia. Reports are rife in
Western Missouri that the Southern Confederacy has been recognized by England
and France, and that before the last of October the blockade will be broken by
the navies of both nations. The rebels prophesy that before ten years have
elapsed the Confederacy will be the greatest, most powerful, and prosperous,
nation on the globe, and that the United States will decay, and be forced to
seek the protection of England to prevent their being crushed by the
South."
Rebel ascendancy in
Missouri was short-lived, however, as General John C. Frémont quickly mounted a
campaign to retake Missouri. And "...without a single battle, the momentum
suddenly shifted." On September 26, "Frémont moved west from St. Louis with
thirty-eight thousand troops. Soon, he arrived at Sedalia, southeast of
Lexington, threatening to trap the rebels against the river." On September 29,
Price was forced to abandon Lexington, and he and his men moved into southwest
Missouri. "...their commanders do not wish to run any risk, their policy being
to make attacks only where they feel confident, through superiority of numbers,
of victory." Price and his generals stuck firmly to this cautious strategy, and
similar to General Joseph E. Johnston's infamous retreat toward Atlanta, Price's
Missouri State Guard fell back hundreds of miles in the face of a superior
force. They soon retreated from the state and headed for Arkansas and later
Mississippi.
Small remnants of the
Missouri Guard remained in the state and fought isolated battles throughout the
war. Price soon came under the command and control of the Confederates. In March
1862, any hopes for a new offensive in Missouri were dimmed in the Battle of Pea
Ridge just south of the border in Arkansas. The Missouri State Guard was to stay
largely intact as a unit through the war and was to suffer heavy casualties in
Mississippi in the Battle of Iuka and Second Battle of Corinth.
Ironclad Navy and Riverine
Campaigns
While various forces
battled inconclusively for southwest Missouri, a unique Army-Navy-civilian
cooperative effort built a war winning riverine navy. St. Louis River salvage
expert, and engineering genius, James Buchanan Eads won a contract to build a
fleet of shallow-draft ironclads for use on the western rivers. An unusually
cooperative relationship between Army officials (who would own the vessels) and
Navy officers (who would command them) helped speed the work. Drawing on his
reputation and personal credit (and that of St. Louis Unionists) Eads used
subcontractors throughout the midwest (and as far east as Pittsburg) to produce
nine ironclads in just over three months. Built at Eads' own Union Marine Works
(in the St. Louis suburb of Carondelet), and at a satellite yard at Cairo,
Illinois, the seven City-class ironclads, the Essex, and heavy ironclad Benton
were the first U.S. ironclads and the first to see combat.
St. Louis' Benton Barracks
became the mustering depot for western troops, and in February 1862, Department
of Missouri commander Major General Henry Halleck approved a joint invasion of
west Tennessee along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Army troops under
Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and the newly built Western Gunboat Flotilla,
commanded by Navy Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote, captured Fort Henry and Fort
Donelson, unhinging the Confederate defensive perimeter in the west. After the
subsequent Battle of Shiloh, the Federal Army pushed into northern Mississippi,
while the Gunboat fleet moved down the Mississippi with cooperating Federal
troops, systematically capturing every Confederate position north of Vicksburg,
Mississippi.
The riverine strategy put
the Confederacy on the defensive in the west for the rest of the war, and
effectively ended meaningful Confederate efforts to recapture Missouri. The
defeat of a Confederate army in northern Arkansas, at the Battle of Pea Ridge,
further discouraged the Confederate leadership as to the wisdom, or possibility,
of occupying Missouri. Subsequent military Confederate military action in the
state would be limited to a small number of large raids (notably Shelby's Raid
of 1863 and Price's Raid of 1864), and partial endorsement of the activities of
Missouri guerrillas.
Guerrilla warfare
The Battle of Wilson's
Creek was the last large scale engagement in the state until Price returned in
1864 in a last-ditch attempt to capture the state. Between 1862 and 1864, the
state endured guerrilla warfare in which Southern partisan rangers and
Bushwhackers battled the Kansas irregulars known as Jayhawkers and Redlegs or
"Redleggers" (from the red gaiters they wore around their lower legs) and the
allied Union forces.
Jayhawker raids against
perceived civilian "Confederate sympathizers" alienated Missourians and made
maintaining the peace even harder for the Unionist provisional government. As
Major General Henry Halleck wrote General John C. Frémont in September 1861,
[Jayhawker raider] Jim Hale had to be removed from the Kansas border as "A few
more such raids" would render Missouri "as unanimous against us as is Eastern
Virginia." While Jayhawker violence alienated communities who would've otherwise
been loyal supporters of the Union, marauding bands of pro-secession
bushwhackers sustained guerrilla war and outright banditry, especially in
Missouri's northern counties. Major General John Pope and, who oversaw northern
Missouri, blamed local citizens for not doing enough to put down bushwhacker
guerrillas, and ordered locals to raise militias to counter them. "Refusal to do
so would bring an occupying force of Federal soldiers into their counties."
Pope, Ewing and Frémont's heavy-handed approach alienated even those civilians
who were suffering at the hands of the bushwhackers.
Although guerrilla warfare
occurred throughout much of the state, most of the incidents occurred in
northern Missouri and were characterized by ambushes of individuals or families
in rural areas. These incidents were particularly nefarious because their
vigilante nature was outside the command and control of either side and often
pitted neighbor against neighbor. Civilians on all sides faced looting, violence
and other depredations.
Among the more notorious
incidents of guerrilla warfare were the Sacking of Osceola, burning of Platte
City and the Centralia Massacre. Among the famous bushwhackers were Quantrill's
Raiders and Bloody Bill Anderson.
General Order No.
11
In 1863 following the
Lawrence Massacre in Kansas, Union General Thomas Ewing, Jr. accused farmers in
rural Missouri of either instigating the attack or supporting it. He issued
General Order No. 11 which forced the evacuation of all residents of rural areas
of the four counties (Jackson, Cass, Bates and Vernon) south of the Missouri
River on the Kansas border to leave their property, which was then burned. The
order applied to farmers regardless of loyalty, although those who could prove
their loyalty to the Union could stay in designated towns and those who could
not were exiled entirely. Among those forced to leave were Kansas City founder
John Calvin McCoy and its first mayor, William S. Gregory.
Price's Raid
With the Confederacy
clearly losing the war in 1864, Sterling Price reassembled his Missouri Guard
and launched a last gasp offensive to take Missouri. However, Price was unable
to repeat his 1861 victorious campaigns in the state. Striking in the
southeastern portion of the state, Price moved north, and attempted to capture
Fort Davidson but failed. Next, Price sought to attack St. Louis but found it
too heavily fortified and thus broke west in a parallel course with the Missouri
River. This took him through the (relatively) friendly country of the
"Boonslick", which had provided a large percentage of the Missouri volunteers
who had joined the CSA. Ironically, although Price had issued orders against
pillage, many of the pro-Confederate civilians in this area (which would be
known as "Little Dixie" after the war) suffered from looting and depredations at
the hands of Price's men.
The Federals attempted to
retard Price's advance through both minor and substantial skirmishing such as at
Glasgow and Lexington. Price made his way to the extreme western portion of the
state, taking part in a series of bitter battles at the Little Blue,
Independence, and Byram's Ford. His Missouri campaign culminated in the battle
of Westport in which over 30,000 troops fought, leading to the defeat of the
Southern army. The Missourians retreated through Kansas and Indian Territory
into Arkansas, where they stayed for the remainder of the war.
Reconstruction
Since Missouri had remained in
the Union, it did not suffer outside military occupation or other extreme
aspects of Reconstruction. The immediate post-war state government was
controlled by Republicans, who attempted to execute an "internal
reconstruction", banning politically powerful former secessionists from the
political process and empowering the state's newly emancipated African-American
population. This led to major dissatisfaction among many politically important
groups, and provided opportunities for reactionary elements in the state.
Following the Civil War, new
railroads in Missouri created better conditions for large companies, who
squeezed out small, independent producers. The railroads opened up new markets
for mined, agricultural and manufactured goods. The invention of refrigerated
railroad cars would make meat packing, once a part-time local industry, a
mainstay of the state's economy.
The Democrats were to return to being the dominant power in the state by 1873 through an alliance with returned ex-Confederates (almost all of whom had been part of the pro-slavery Anti-Benton wing of the Missouri Democratic Party prior to the Civil War). The reunified Democratic Party exploited themes of: racial prejudice; a (largely fictional) version of a Missouri "Lost Cause" which purported Missourians as victims of Federal tyranny and outrages; and depiction of Missouri Unionists and Republicans as traitors (to the state) and criminals. This capture of the historical narrative was largely successful, and secured control of the state for the Democratic Party through the 1950s. The ex-Confederate/Democratic resurgence also defeated efforts to empower Missouri's African-American population, and ushered in the state's version of Jim Crow legislation. (This was motivated both by widespread racial prejudice and concerns that former slaves were likely to be reliable Republican voters.)
Many newspapers in the 1870s Missouri were vehement in their opposition to national Radical Republican policies, for political, economic, and racial reasons. The outlaws James-Younger gang was to capitalize on this and become folk heroes as they robbed banks and trains while getting sympathetic press from the state's newspapers—most notably the Kansas City Times. Jesse James, who killed with bushwacker Bloody Bill Anderson at Centralia, was to excuse his murder of a resident of Gallatin, during a bank robbery, saying he thought he was killing Samuel P. Cox, who had hunted down Anderson after Centralia. In addition, the vigilante activities of the 'Bald Knobbers' in south-central Missouri during the 1880s have been interpreted by some as a further continuation of Civil War related guerrilla warfare.
See also:
